Actress Renee Zellweger can't understand why the media was so mean to Kenny Chesney after their brief marriage collapsed.

The Bridget Jones's Diary star was married to the country singer for just four months when they annulled their union in September 2005, with Zellweger citing "fraud" as the reason for their split, fuelling speculation the country star wasn't quite what she thought he was.

Neither Renee nor Kenny have discussed the break-up at length, what caused it or the subsequent rumours about his sexuality, and when the whole drama was brought up again during a recent interview with LGBT magazine the Advocate, the actress confessed she had forgotten all about it.

"It's a pretty big thing to forget, isn't it?" she smiled. "That made me sad. It made me sad that somehow people were using that as a way to be cruel and calling someone gay as a pejorative, which has fateful consequences. Of course, there's the bigger-picture problem of why anyone had to make up a story at all."

The media scrutiny over the use of the word "fraud" in the divorce papers forced Zellweger to release a statement, in which she claimed the term was "simply legal language and not a reflection of Kenny's character".

She doesn't like speaking about her private life in public and the 46-year-old, who published an essay for the Huffington Post in August (15), in which she slammed tabloid journalism, doesn't understand how fictional storylines get so blown out of proportion.

"I’m an old-fashioned gal who doesn’t feel it’s appropriate to hang out your laundry (personal business) on the lawn," she explained. "I feel you devalue yourself as a human being when you share very personal things with a bajillion strangers who are making fun of you. I just don’t see that there’s any dignity in that. But sometimes it is difficult to just let something be what it is, especially when it’s unnecessary ugliness. Once you’ve said your piece, shouldn’t that be enough?"

Chesney briefly addressed the gay rumours back in 2007 during an appearance on American news show 60 Minutes. He told journalist Anderson Cooper, "It's not true. Period."